As Hersh tells the story, the secretary of defense was âapoplecticâ after U.S. forces blew a chance to kill Afghanistanâs Mullah Omar because a military lawyer wouldnât approve the strike.

âRumsfeld was apoplectic over what he saw as a self-defeating hesitation to attack that was due to political correctness,â Hersh writes.

To which many people might say: Itâs about time. Thatâs precisely the reaction a secretary of defense should have.

And Rumsfeld didnât just rant. According to Hersh, he created a new, top-secret program to get around legal roadblocks in high-importance terrorism cases.

The program gave elite U.S. forces great freedom in nabbing terrorists. âThe rules are âGrab whom you must. Do what you want,ââ one former intelligence official told Hersh.

To which many people might say: Good.

And the plan worked. âIn mid-2003, the special-access program was regarded in the Pentagon as one of the success stories of the war on terror,â Hersh writes.

âItâs been the most important capability we have for dealing with an imminent threat,â the former intelligence official told Hersh. âIf we discover where Osama bin Laden is, we can get him. And we can remove an existing threat with a real capability to hit the United States â and do so without visibility.â

Although Hersh writes that some of the programâs methods were âtroubling,â still many people might say of the program: Thank you, thank you, thank you.

It's a gotta-read.

As a special bonus, it contains the most potty-mouth we've ever seen in a The Hill article.